As part of the Affordable Care Act, non-grandfathered group health plans and insurers are required to provide certain preventive services to participants without charging deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance or imposing other cost-sharing requirements. The general requirement to provide such preventive services without cost-sharing went into effect for plan years beginning on or after September 23, 2010 (January 1, 2011 for calendar-year plans). While some basic women's services were included in the list of preventive care services initially covered under this rule, guidelines for specific women's preventive care services were not issued until a year ago and are now set to take effect.
Therefore, for plan years beginning on or after August 1, 2012 (January 1, 2013 for calendar-year plans), non-grandfathered plans must begin providing expanded coverage with no cost-sharing for the following eight new prevention-related women's services:
- Well-woman visits
- Gestational diabetes screening for pregnant women between 24 and 28 weeks of gestation and at the first prenatal visit for pregnant women identified to be at high risk for diabetes
- Domestic and interpersonal violence screening and counseling
- FDA-approved contraceptive methods and contraceptive education and counseling (note that group health plans sponsored by certain religious employers, and group health insurance coverage offered in connection with those plans are exempt from this requirement)
- Breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling
- Human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing, for women 30 and older
- Sexually transmitted infections counseling for sexually-active women
- HIV screening and counseling for sexually-active women
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